Two Poems by A.D. Winans

Winter Poem

Chill of winter in the air
Misty fog giving way
To a light rain
Cars spewing deadly exhaust fumes
Windshield wipers flapping like the
Wings of birds in migration
Stone faces hidden behind steering wheels
Give no quarter yield only to the
Red traffic stoplights
Pedestrians looking like mannequins
Turn into penguins scurrying
Across the street
On their way to work
Boarding the morning bus
Pressed together like preserved butterflies
Between the pages of an old
And frayed book

Mission Street Woman

Brown skinned young woman
from the Mission via
Nicaragua
struts her stuff down the
street
ignoring the young boys
strolling macho like
dreaming the cha-cha-cha

teen gum chewing whites
out where they don’t belong
looking sounding like the
lyrics to a bad song
half-breed dog snaps
at my heels
doesn’t know that
I was born here
ghostly jazz sounds from
the past
no Irish faces left
gone the way of the Indian
south of market street

Easter Sunday blues
here in the Mission
Christ would have liked
it here

A.D. Winans